Dude Looks Like a Brady

/ jane in training / 4 Comments
"Duuuuudes..."

“Duuudes…”

“Who’s that lady??” My friend asked, pointing at someone in one of my photo albums.

I peered over at the lady in question.

“That’s me.” I kindly informed her.

That’s a lie. I mean, it was me, but I wasn’t kind about it. I screeched at her like a really angry chimpanzee. No, I didn’t throw my own poop at her. You guys are disgusting.

If there is one thing I know for sure: I am no lady (see screeching and talking about my own poop).

At the time of the photo, my hair was growing back in and it had decided to grow in curly. Really curly. Like the Brady-Bunch-in-Hawaii curly.

I was the envy of all the older women who volunteered at my place of work, which was troubling, yet flattering at the same time. I even let some of them pet my head. And just like the Brady boys, I had to convince them that it was completely natural and not a perm.

Girl. Chick. Woman. Lady.

I reserve the right to call myself anything I like at any time. I detest pigeon-holing-descriptives, even though we need to use them sometimes. Don’t you hate being labeled? You are so much more complex than way-too-many-purses-girl or turkey-sandwich-no-mayo-guy.

If I were to get lost in a crowd, my friends would frantically describe me as: “…really short! Her hair is short, too, and wavy. DO NOT ask her if it’s a perm. She looks like an old girl – does that help? Asian, glasses, sarcastic…if she looks at you suspiciously, that’s her!!” Or perhaps they wouldn’t look for me at all. I’m very suspicious of my friends.

In any case, I don’t think it matters to me how I’m addressed as a female (except the obvious ones). It’s the context and spirit behind it that matters. I’ve accepted: “Duuuude!!!” I’ll even allow “Foxy Lady”. But, please, it has to come from the heart. Nothing is worse than a meaningless and sludgy, “Hey there, Foxy Lady…” from the wrong person. I can’t seem to stop saying Foxy Lady. You know those words that sound stranger the more you repeat them? This is the opposite of that. But it’s starting to get creepy, so I’ll stop.

In some ways, I think how we define ourselves is much worse than what others think of us. We can be hell on ourselves. It makes me crazy when I realize I’ve called myself a failure even before I begin something. While I was drafting this post, I was using words like unfeminine, boyish, and former band geek. That’s my perception of myself and I can be those things, but it doesn’t define who I am. You, like myself, are uncontainable. We stay the same, yet we are constantly changing. We are everything inside. It’s a trick, this life, to keep true to yourself yet still be open, forever expanding in all directions.

Today, I go out into the world as an athlete, a seeker, and friend. At some point I might be a Brady, Foxy Lady, and an inconsolable baby. At the end of the night, who knows?

That’s another trick: Can you imagine what life would be like if we didn’t keep trying to write the endings first?

The Day I Asked Butter to Marry Me

/ jane in training / 5 Comments

This is not a food blog.

I bake occasionally, yet have never felt moved to post anything about my clanking around in the kitchen. There are so many food bloggers out there sharing beautifully delicious information. Leave it to the professionals, right? I didn’t want to muck up the Internet with my measly offerings. Until this happened:

before

Folks, I knew I had to blog about this as soon as I started browning the butter over the stove. It totally made me grumpy. Why do I have to brown this butter? Is it browning yet?? Now? Is it brown now?? Hey, it looks like it’s going to explode and splatter, leaving me with butter-filled boils on my arms!!!

And then, the butter bitch-slapped me and started getting groovy. And then, I wanted to guzzle it like ice cold beer on a hot day.

BrownButter, will you marry me?

Look!

after

These Peach Cobbler Muffins were made from the Joy the Baker Cookbook. She doesn’t have the recipe on her blog, so BrownButter told me to type it out instead of grumping about it. BB also instructed me not to cut and paste from some other site. Respect the muffin. Anything you say, BB…sigh…

————————————————

peach cobbler muffins

peach cobbler muffins
courtesy of joy wilson | joy the baker cookbook
makes 12 muffins

for the muffins:

1 ½ c all-purpose flour
½ c granulated sugar
¼ c packed brown sugar
1 ½ tsps baking powder
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
7 Tb (almost 1 stick) unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/3 c milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ c diced peaches

for the topping:

3 Tb unsalted butter, cold
½ c all-purpose flour
¼ c packed brown sugar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 12-cup muffin pan and set aside. You can also use cupcake papers for this recipe. 

To make the muffins: in a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Place butter in a small saucepan, and melt until browned over medium heat. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, whisk together egg, yolk, milk, and vanilla. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the warm butter, making sure to scrape any brown bits into the egg mixture as well. Whisk until well incorporated.

Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture all at once. Fold together with a spatula. Once no flour bits remain, fold in the diced peaches. Divide the batter between the muffin cups.

To make the topping: combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and blend together with your fingers until crumbly. Butter will be the size of oats and small pebbles. Divide the topping among the muffin cups on top of the batter.

Bake muffins for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in the pan 20 minutes before removing. To remove, run a butter knife along the edges of the muffin pan and gently scoop out.

Muffins will last, well wrapped, at room temperature for up to 3 days.

—————————————————

Those are the instructions, verbatim, and I followed them verbatim. The muffins took longer in my oven than the recipe stated, and unfortunately, I’m not sure how long I baked them. I did one of those “three, then two, then three more minutes” until I forgot the total time in the oven. But I know you’re smarter than me because you are at one with your oven and know its temperament well enough to outsmart it.

They turned out wonderfully. I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve already had two and plan to have another, warmed, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

By the way, BrownButter turned down my proposal. After all the typing I did, it said it just wanted to be “friends”.

With a heavy heart (and tummy), I carry on.

 

retired ninja

/ jane in training / 3 Comments

 

image courtesy of chris spooner (http://blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/tutorials/illustrator-tutorial-create-a-gang-of-vector-ninjas)

Image courtesy of blog.spoongraphics 

“You’re a ninja!!”

Apparently, this was the only logical explanation for how I came to be standing next to him without him knowing it.

—————————————

According to Wikipedia, ninjas were covert agents or mercenaries in feudal Japan. Their special talents included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination. In a quote attributed to historian Kiyoshi Watatani, he states that ninjas were trained so that an opponent “does not know of one’s existence, and for which there was special training.”

Curious for more information, I also checked with MommaPedia and this was her ninja checklist:

– black clothing
– only out at night
– stays in the shadows of darkness
– individualized, special skills
– jumps high, runs fast

Oh…then I was raised to be a ninja, except for the jumping and running fast bit.

I could also be a vampire.

I was trained in these skills: not to cause waves, not to stand out, not to think too highly of myself, and not to burden other people with – well, anything. I took my training to heart. I became very good at being…unnoticeable. And I really believed I could make myself invisible.

People have walked over and stood right in front of me while I’ve been waiting in line. “I didn’t see you!!” is a common exclamation. One time, someone placed themselves directly behind me while I was facing the cashier and paying for my groceries. You don’t have to stand five feet away from me, but I don’t want you spooning me in public, either.

Pet peeve, Reader. Reader, pet peeve.

The reality is, I’m often in peoples’ blind spots – I guess even when I’m in front of them. I’m 4’ 11”. Kids, you know what I’m talking about. When I wear heels and stand at the top of a ladder, the view is incredible.

the view from up here

I can see peoples’ bald spots. People can’t see mine. Everyone looks really different from this majestic angle. Then it occurs to me that maybe being short gives others my best angle. hm.

———————————————

“I don’t want to be a ninja.” I had harumphed at him, thus dashing all of his dreams of having a ninja as a girlfriend. “I’m tired of not being seen.”

And there it was. I hung up my ninja duds and soon after that, the boy was the one who became invisible.

For many years, I had been trying to erase myself, yet I longed to be significant. How in the world was I supposed to be seen if I was trained to please others? Deprogramming. Constant Retraining. Those learned pathways are deeply ingrained.

But I know this: If it’s possible to feel invisible from the inside out, then it’s possible to release that light inside you, too. It’s there, chomping at the bit to get out. And if you’re worried about being a show-off like me, there really is nothing to worry about because if you’re worried about it, you most likely won’t let yourself take a nude selfie and tweet it to the world.

As Marianne Williamson wrote:

Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

And I never thought I would quote Jim Carrey, but here is some profoundness coming from him:

Like many of you, I was concerned about going out into the world and doing something bigger than myself, until someone smarter than myself made me realize that there is nothing bigger than myself.

And there it is. Go out there and do Big things, y’all.

 

*friendship

/ jane in training / 4 Comments

I’m single and I don’t have kids.

So if you want to marry me or be my kid (not both), I will mail you an application. You can tell a lot about a person from their handwriting and the way they construct their sentences. I need to find the right person to inherit my personal treasures:

"...my Preciouses..."

…my Preciouses…

 

In all seriousness, I’ve been thinking about drawing up a living trust/will. I simply cannot imagine leaving and not having the final say. And more seriously – I really do love my Preciouses.

Being in this mind space makes me wonder if I’ve expressed enough love to the people I love. Some already know because I’ve told them or have sent them a random text or email while high on caffeine, running or while possessed by some wide-ranging, renegade emotion. I also say it through food. Sometimes I pull their hair. There are so many different and creative ways of expressing it.

I’m not always a good friend. Relationships morph as you morph and break ups are difficult. Do you use a clichéd saying?: We’ve outgrown each other…We want different things, you and I…It’s not you/me, it’s me/you. You cannot say, “Let’s just be friends” because it’s totally counterproductive.

And then there are those who are stunningly beautiful in the ways that they are, and some way, some how, they look at the tumbledness inside of you and think you are stunningly beautiful, too. One of these beautiful creatures opened her home to me and let me stay with her for three months while I sorted out my life. I’m not sure I could have let myself do this or let someone else do this for me, except her. I love her with all of my heart and beyond. I’ve never said it to her in exactly those words; if I had, I’m sure she would have had me arrested for being overly dramatic, as is my wont. Thusly, my plan is to tell her posthaste! For my heart wills it. Exit stage left.

I guess that’s the point of a living will: to take care of business while you’re still able, and remind you to use your voice, arms, and yes, your oven, too, while you are still able. I wish more than anything that I could will everyone their hearts’ desires plus the belief that they can do whatever that thing is that makes them happy.

What the hell. Maybe I will add that to my wishes and demands. I wonder if you have to use law lingo for a document to be considered legal tender. (I feel like that sentence made me sound kinda smart.) Well, for now, I’m declaring it here. I’m feeling sentimental these days; so much so that my heart gets to aching because it feels like I’m not doing everything I can for the people around me.

I think I’ll go now and bake cakes for everyone…

friends

*for nancy

 

breaking

/ jane in training / 2 Comments

I just found out that one of my good friends, someone I consider to be like a sister to me, is under hospice care. She was placed there the same day I posted ghosts.

I’m going to leave later in the week and hope she will be up to having visitors.

my heart is breaking…